The power of creative, critical and empathetic imagination to shape transformative opportunities in the teaching of literacy

This paper examines the power of creative literacies, when used as a critical tool to challenge inequality and work towards a model of social justice in and out of the classroom. The interplay between literacy practices that challenge existing patterns and activity which reproduces existing relations of domination are considered, exploring the notion of rupture and the ways in which existing relations of domination can be resisted. By exploring rupture/reproduction, I build on the concept of literacies to provide a way in which the enactment of creative literacies can rupture and reproduction can be grasped and new forms of curriculum made visible. The narratives of three generations of females in a family are illustrated, to provide a description of their engagement, directly or indirectly, with a transformative curriculum both to empower themselves and the local and wider community. The study draws from an overarching qualitative framework (Creswell, 2013; Duckworth, 2013, 2014; Harding, 1987; Stanley & Wise, 1990), whilst the research approach is based on a range of strategies which include participatory action research (PAR) and a range of theoretical positions such as feminist standpoint theory. It also embraces life history, literacy studies and ethnographic approaches to exploring social practices. This is a reflection of one of the underpinning values held by the author which recognises the multiplicity of literacy event sites and the social dimension of literacy practices